Saturday, July 20, 2013

Logan Aronhalt to Play for Assigeco Casalpusterlengo in Italy

Logan Aronhalt (2012-13), making his first appearance in this blog, has signed to play next season with Italian team Assigeco Casalpusterlengo. Casalpusterlengo plays in the Nazionale A league, the third division of pro basketball in Italy. Naturally, there were lots of local stories about the signing:

Former Maryland guard Logan Aronhalt has signed a 10-month contract to play basketball with Assigeco Casalpusterlengo in Italy.

Aronhalt, who averaged 6.0 points per game as an off-the-bench 3-point threat in his lone season with the Terrapins, signed a contract last Friday while playing in a Las Vegas showcase and will leave for Italy on August 15.

With Casalpusterlengo, Aronhalt enters an eerily similar situation to the one he found in College Park. The Italian squad, which finished fourth in its division last year, fields five players born in the 1990s, included two born in 1995 or later.

“I’m going to be one of the older guys on the team, but I think anytime they bring in imports they expect to score and be one of the better players. I’ll be doing a lot more scoring than I’ll be doing at Maryland,” Aronhalt said. “Then again I’ll have to be an older guy, an elder statesmen of sorts.”

As a high school player in Ohio, Logan Aronhalt twice went with teams to Italy to play basketball. Aronhalt, who played as a graduate student last season at Maryland after playing three years at Albany, will now be going to Italy to start what he hopes to be a long professional career.

The 6-foot-3 shooting guard signed last week with Assigeco Casalpusterlengo, a third-division team near Milan. Aronhalt said his agent sent tapes out to a number of European teams and had a connection to another agent in Italy, who helped close the deal.

In Italy, incoming players often start in the third-tier league, like Aronhalt will with Assigeco Casalpusterlengo. Players are able to move up into the higher divisions, as Aronhalt hopes to do by performing well this season.

“I’ll be playing in the lower league, but the top division is very good,” Aronhalt said. “This gives me a chance to get my foot in the door over there, and hopefully I can work my way up.”